Apr 10

f_kronos

Posted in: NUKE from The Foundry
Hello,

i want to slow down a sequence with Kronos.
But i have a vectorblur node as well.
Do i place the Kronos before or after the vectorblur ?
If i place it after, how do i get the motion channel going through the kronos node ?

thanks

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Apr 09

Wrong DPX ? searching for truth

Posted in: Beginners Talk
Hi everyone

I’m working in small company. We are doing restoration of old movies.
At the begining we worked on 720×576 files.
But now we’ll work with 2K dpx files.
Some work we doing in Fusion.

But DPX files we get from scanner look odd.

I have read about internal structure of dpx file here
http://www.fileformat.info/format/dpx/egff.htm

Our dpx files have field "Transfer" (byte at offset 801) set to 01 (Printing density).
Is it the same if it was set to 03 (Logarithmic) ?

If I bring these files to Fusion, it automatically applys LogToLin conversion in loader.
I also enable viewer LUT and set it to 2,2 to compensate monitor’s nonlinearity.

Is it normal thing that picture has blown out highlights? highlights also have strange blue-green noise. Most of the white color is overbright.
And whole picture become very grainy.
I don’t think that this is how good picture must look like.
Get the same result if put files to the Nuke.
If it’s ok, then what is the reason of such highlights?

My question is how "right" picture must looks like?

I think it is possible there is something wrong at scanning stage. Some wrong settings maybe.
Without LogToLin and with LUT turned off, files look better.

Advice from experienced people needed. 🙂
May be someone can send me example of DPX or CIN you work with? or show it here. Please.

Some examples








Last two pictures I made from DPX file given to me by some vfx guy. He said "don’t worry about highlights". :rolleyes:

Sorry for my bad english

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Apr 09

Trailer shot breakdown

Posted in: Gallery
Hey there!

Here is a compositing breakdown of a shot i did in our VFX project at school.
We were supposed to make a movie trailer of a none existing movie.

The compositing is done in Fusion

Comments and critics are always welcome!

You can see the whole trailer here:
http://vimeo.com/10457916

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Apr 09

What’s the abs in DifferenceMerge (abs(A-B))?

Posted in: NUKE from The Foundry
I know the math behind the Difference merge is abs(A-B). But what exactly is the abs? I’m trying to recreate this manually, and I’m not too sure what it’s doing.
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Apr 09

The Head

Posted in: Design, Film, Matias Vigliano, Motion

Pleasant like warm fuzzies here’s The Head, by Matias Vigliano (previously: Poster Series 02) and Dante Zaballa, for those who like animation with character.

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Apr 09

See No Evil: 1 Year Anniversary

Posted in: Adobe CS5, community, creative, event, General, James Wignall, london, man vs machine, mograph meeting, See No Evil, Thiago Maia, ubik

See No Evil, the London event that is run by Thiago Maia and our own James Wignall will celebrate its 1 year anniversary next week with a meeting featuring Ubik and Man vs. Machine. The meeting is at 7PM Tuesday, April 13th at Kick Bar. One lucky attendee will win a brand-new copy of Adobe CS5 as well!

We’re very excited to see more community events like See No Evil that are celebrating and sharing great work in the field of Motion Design, film-making and animation, and that create a space for designers to meet up with each other outside the office. We caught up with Thiago to talk briefly about his last year running the event.


Give us a quick rundown of what See No Evil does, who’s involved and what’s your mission?
See No Evil is an bi-month event and a blog for all Animators, Designers and Directors to show and discuss our work in the UK. It is an initiative from Thiago Maia and James Wignall and our mission is to give the industry a better sense of community in London and a new place where they can find work and interesting things about our industry in UK.

Why did you want to start SNE? What was missing from the Motion Design scene in London?
As a Brazilian and a freelancer in London, I always missed that community side to meet people and especially where to look for it.
In London things are a bit more underground, a bit more difficult to get in touch with if you don’t know people. There are people from everywhere in the world and there are always people arriving and leaving the city. So, I decided to do something to help everyone and make people get together.

In the begin it was just a get together in the Pub and I used to call it “Mograph Meeting”. It used to happen once a month and I used to email just people that I knew and their friends. James Wignall came down few times and we started to talk about the “Mograph Meeting”. He said he was interested in helping me to develop the idea, so we teamed up and in March of 2009 we created the first See No Evil with the release of PSST! Pass It On 3 in London.

What has been the best thing about the last year of SNE?
The best thing of 2009 was to see the event growing, getting better and helping people in the industry.
It started just showing peoples work and now we have the best Directors in UK coming down to show and talk about their work.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned? Anything you would have done differently?
I think the big lesson is that it is really difficult to organise something like this, especially without any sponsor or help from the industry. We learnt a lot from our mistakes and we still learning. But it is worth it when you get feedback from people and see that you are helping the industry. It is great for us when we heard people saying that they got work because of See No Evil.

What plans do you have for the next year of SNE?
Our plan is to make the event grow and to be self-sufficient. To make it better and more professional for everyone, with more and more surprises.
We want to improve the website/blog to post more of the best work from the UK industry, and also to make it a better place to find work, studios and freelancers in UK, helping the industry to get together.
If we can dream high, we would love to make a big See No Evil Event next year with Directors and people from around the world. But it still a dream, because at the moment the cost of organising the events comes from our own pockets and a big event would cost a lot money! But we are dreamers and I believe that everything is possible.

Congrats, guys! Looking forward to another year. We’ll try to get over there at some point to check it out and buy a round!

UPDATE: 04/14/10 Check out SNE pics from the event here.

Posted on Motionographer

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Apr 09

Struggling with the grian node, any tips?

Posted in: NUKE from The Foundry
Been Nuking for a short while and while most things make sense, the grain node is still causing me pain.

Grain that matches fine in Shake I can’t seem to do in Nuke; I don’t know if it’s a case of me not using the grain node properly, or the grain node is naff (which seems unlikely given Foundry seem to know their stuff pretty well :)).

I’ve read techniques posted here (F_regrain, ScannedGrain, Degrain & difference, etc) but I was wondering if good results can be achieved using only grain. How do you folks use the node?

Cheers!
JC

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Apr 09

Crossroads Reinforce Melancholy Spirit For Moby

Posted in: Industry News
[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/moby_thumb.jpg”]24885[/NEWS]Merge@Crossroads’ Mark Pellington further established his big-act musical legacy with a trio of artistic videos, for indie-rock sensation Alpha Rev, Grammy-nominated mainstay Moby, and Grammy winners The Fray. Pellington approached each of these videos with his unique abstract narrative style, merging vocal performance with conceptual and thematic imagery.

Moby’s One Time We Lived is a stirring yet very calm and still digital exploration of mortality, featuring the legendary techno performer singing against a shuffling panorama of sunsets, palm trees, hillsides, and the glimmering ocean.

Macabre imagery – a floating mask, a bloody finger – occasionally floats over the scene, reinforcing the song’s melancholy spirit and haunting message, while typography delivers poignant reinforcement to the lyrics. This is a very personal and poignant piece for Pellington and was made with a crew of three people.

“I created these videos on a very small scale and in a highly personal manner-each was a collaboration of trust with the artist. They were open to my interpretation of their lyrics and the creative execution proved fruitful and meaningful,” noted Pellington. “I love doing videos because they are a highly personal form of expression for me, and yet can be open to many interpretations.”

Pellington is attached to direct the remake of The Orphanage for Warner Brothers and producer Guillermo del Toro as his next feature project.

A multimedia and content creation firm, Crossroads offers a clear vision, innovative leadership, and unparalleled reach into the entertainment talent pool. With headquarters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and an affiliate office in Toronto, Crossroads has five divisions: Film, Commercials, Music Videos, New Media, and Creative Services. All offer exclusive talent featuring some of the world’s top directors, show creators, writers, and producers.

Founded in 1989, Crossroads has been a consistent leader in the development and production of feature films and television programming, as well as producing award-winning commercial and music video content for top-tier brands, agencies and performing artists.

CREDITS
Artist: Alpha Rev
Song Title: New Morning

Label: Hollywood Records
CD(s): Dave Snow, Mike Sarkissian

Prod Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Director: Mark Pellington
DP: Eric Schmidt
EP: Joseph Uliano, Neil Maiers
Producer: Norm Reiss

Editorial Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Editor: Nathan Cox

Telecine: Rushes
Colorist: Marshall Plante

Shoot Location: Austin, TX Artist: Moby
Song Title: One Time We Lived

Prod Co: Pellington Films
Director: Mark Pellington
DP: Matt Roe
EP: Mark Pellington, Matt Roe
Producer: Matt Roe

Editorial Co: Pellington Films
Editor: Matt Roe

Post/Effects Co: Oishii Creative
Lead VFX/Inferno Artist: Ismael Obregon

Telecine Co: Pellington Flms
Colorist(s): Michael Perdew
Artist: The Fray
Song Title: Syndicate

Prod Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Director: Mark Pellington
DP: Eric Schmidt
EP: Joseph Uliano, Neil Maiers
Producer: Norm Reiss

Editorial Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Editor: Nathan Cox

Telecine: Rushes
Colorist: Gino Panaro

Shoot Location: Hollywood, CA

RELATED LINKS
www.crossroadsfilms.com
www.mergefilms.com

Read more: http://www.trustcollective.com/portf…#ixzz0kcNgjDm8
Attribution: Written content created by TRUST: http://www.trustcollective.com
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

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Apr 09

projector_v2 – mac os x app to easily create and change project folders and icons

Posted in: The Pad

I got sick and tired of duplicating template projects and messing around with icons after the fact. So I made this little applescript app to help with the process:

http://www.andrewandoru.com/2010/04/…-projector_v2/

There is a demo video on the site. Let me know if its useful!

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Apr 09

Maya TD – London

Posted in: The Job Lot
Amiqus currently has a contract role for a Maya TD to work in a high profile London VFX studio. If you have experience of rigging, setup, lighting, surface texture and shaders and would like to work on a very exciting project please contact robert.clarkin@amiqus.com. Day rate is negotiable for the right person.
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